Sheffield Palestine protesters reject PM’s calls for ‘un-British’ rally to be delayed

A Sheffield pro-Palestine protest went ahead as planned today – rejecting Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s calls for students to not attend protests on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks in Israel.

In an article for The Times last night, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was “un-British to have so little respect for others”.

The Hamas-led attacks on October 7th 2023 killed 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage. Meanwhile, the Gaza healthy ministry says more than 67,000 Palestinians have died in the subsequent and ongoing Israeli military campaign.

Organised by the Sheffield Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), more than 100 people gathered on the Sheffield SU Concourse for the rally in support of Palestine.

Society member Inigo Gordon told The Sheffield Tab he didn’t believe there was “anything insensitive” about the protest taking place on the anniversary.

He said: “This day marks two years of genocide, and this anger needs to be expressed somehow. I don’t think there is anything wrong or anything anti-Semitic about hosting it on this day or anything insensitive. I think it would be insensitive not to.

“To back down on our university’s complicity and our government’s complicity against this genocide would be the insensitive thing to do here.”

Another RCP member, Anton Parocki said: “I don’t care what Keir Starmer has to say.”

He added: “Jewish people are regularly at these movements, and so the idea that it’s anti-Semitic in any way is a disgrace. It’s disgusting, and it’s not true. I’ve never seen any kind of anti-Semitism in these movements.”

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Inigo went on to call for arms companies partnered with the University of Sheffield to be “kicked off campus” and “for the university to put under control of students and workers” rather than “bureaucratic management”.

The main aim of the protest today, however, was to have “a political discussion”.

Inigo continued: “It’s a way forward and I think the Palestine movement itself has kind of lacked that. What we want to do as a Revolutionary Communist Party is to be the political leadership in this, to give it direction and to give it a way forward.

“We call for the mass mobilization of students and workers for Palestine. I think we often think this is a utopian demand. But actually, in Italy, you have just seen a general strike of millions of people for Palestine. We want to show to Sheffield students that they have the potential to take that leading role and they can be the ones on the front lines fighting for a free Palestine.”

More than two million Italians participated in a general strike last Friday in support of Gazans.

Earlier this week, Sheffield RCP members claimed Sheffield Students’ Union had tried to “shut down” the rally.

The Sheffield Tab understands Sheffield SU had asked the society to look at dates other than October 7th, with the significance of the date and recent events such as last week’s terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester in mind.

Referencing the attack in which two people died, a member of the society said in a video on Instagram that the SU was “weaponising this to equate anti-semitism with pro-Palestine views”.

Anton added today: “What’s actually anti-Semitism is conflating the actions of the Israeli ruling class, this genocidal campaign of Netanyahu, with Judaism.”

He went on to add that he believed the SU should have been an organiser of the rally and a general assembly on Palestine, saying: “They dragged their feet, they’re not organising it. It’s disgusting.”

Sheffield SU did not respond to a request for comment.

The SU Concourse shortly after midday

Starting at midday, protesters gathered with Palestinian flags on display and members of the Sheffield RCP delivering remarks.

Daisy, a Hallam University student, told the crowd: “As a mass movement of students, we have power. Over the last weeks and months we’ve seen student movements around the world take power into their hands.

“We’ve seen in Nepal, they overthrew their government. This shows the strength of the youth. People tell us that we have no power, we know that we do. We need people on every campus in the country raising the flag of Palestine and calling for an end to this genocide.”

The crowds intermittently shouted chants such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “your uni is covered in Palestinian blood”.

In a statement to The Sheffield Tab, a University of Sheffield spokesperson said: “We continue to support our students and staff who have been directly affected or deeply troubled by the conflict.

“We’re acutely aware of the strength of feeling and the opposing views that exist in relation to this matter and we are encouraging our community, no matter their views, to stand together during this challenging time.”

In response to remarks about the university’s research and innovation partnerships with defence companies, they acknowledged links to companies “across a range of sectors, including defence, to tackle national challenges around productivity, sustainability, and UK security”.